ADVOCACY ACTION PLAN:
As you requested, I am sharing with you my advocacy action plan that is currently in place. In my almost two years of incarceration, I have immersed myself in the law library, reading both all the newer laws such as the CARES Act, the First Step Action, and the new Amendment 821 to the sentencing guidelines and compassionate release reduction in sentence requests, along with criminal justice procedures and the rights of prisoners. I have followed all the rules and regulations of the Bureau of Prisons, attempting to participate in as much program as they can offer, which we all know is below standard due to the decades-long staffing crisis of the BOP. I have documented each and every day, every activity on handmade calendar templates to show what I have done to be productive each day I have been incarcerated. I have filed administrative remedies in attempts to get the BOP to follow the federal statutes and code of federal regulations related to the credits, both federal time credits and good conduct time credits, that the BOP is required by law to provide correctly and accurately. Despite their refusal to follow the federal statutes, I remain respectful and positive toward the situation and have drafted a template letter with facts, federal rules, procedures, and data and sent I that to friends and family who are making it part of their own letters, then signing them, and sending them to FAMM, criminal justice advocates, senators, lawmakers, the Department of Justice, the Attorney General, and others who might be willing to properly pressure the BOP to follow the rules and the laws designed to give early time credits and release to those inmates who are sincerely working each day to not just earn the credits, but to truly change and to honestly prepare themselves for re-entry into society to be re-united with their families and to be productive citizens. You never know when that squeaky wheel just might get the grease it deserves!
Thank you,
Shane A. Smith
#58920-177
